Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) has been al­lo­cat­ed $44.8 mil­lion for the back­pay owed to To­ba­go teach­ers and oth­er groups who ac­cept­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s four per cent wage hike of­fer.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert con­firmed this while speak­ing on the THA’s $2.5 bil­lion al­lo­ca­tion dur­ing the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee ses­sion yes­ter­day in re­sponse to UNC MPs Rudy In­dars­ingh and David Lee’s queries.

Im­bert said the $44.8 mil­lion was for the ar­rears. He not­ed the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) is the bar­gain­ing agent for teach­ers in both is­lands and that TTUTA was one of the unions that ac­cept­ed the four per cent, there­fore, 18,000 teach­ers in both is­lands were get­ting the back­pay this year.

He said the sum al­lo­cat­ed al­so ap­plied to oth­er en­ti­ties that ac­cept­ed the four per cent and are paid by the THA.

The THA al­so has a $4 mil­lion loan guar­an­tee pro­gramme to as­sist busi­ness­es still re­cov­er­ing from the COVID pe­ri­od, as some are tak­ing a long time to re­cov­er.

On a $2 mil­lion in­creased cost for To­ba­go’s School Feed­ing pro­gramme, Im­bert said it ap­peared the THA agreed to in­crease the cost for cater­ers han­dling the pro­gramme’s lunch­es and break­fasts.

THA has $2.4 mil­lion more for the con­struc­tion of its new Li­cens­ing Of­fice. The sum of $10 mil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed in 2022 for site ac­qui­si­tion and oth­er fees. It is at the plan­ning stage.

The THA has in­creased fund­ing–over $400 mil­lion–for the Scar­bor­ough and new Rox­bor­ough hos­pi­tals, plus $10 mil­lion for hos­pi­tal equip­ment. The As­sem­bly has $1.8 mil­lion for costs to­wards Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil pro­grammes, in­clud­ing “Let’s Talk To­ba­go”, Town Hall meet­ings, post-Coun­cil brief­in­gs and oth­er things. THA al­so has $2.7 mil­lion to clear ar­rears for To­ba­go fes­ti­vals.

OS­HA on ag­gres­sive re­cruit­ment dri­ve–Labour Min­is­ter

The Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty and Agency (OS­HA), which is now on an ag­gres­sive re­cruit­ment dri­ve, will al­so be guid­ed by in­dus­tri­al ac­ci­dents which oc­curred–at Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny in 2022 and at Ni­Quan En­er­gy Trinidad Lim­it­ed on June 15–in terms of need­ed skill sets.

Labour Min­is­ter Stephen Mc­Clashie con­firmed this dur­ing yes­ter­day’s SFC de­lib­er­a­tions on the min­istry’s $399.5 mil­lion al­lo­ca­tion in the 2024 Bud­get. He was re­spond­ing to UNC MP In­dars­ingh, who had asked if fol­low­ing the ac­ci­dents at Paria and Ni­Quan–where fa­tal­i­ties oc­curred–if any spe­cialised of­fi­cers would be hired at the OSH Agency based on these two in­dus­tri­al ac­ci­dents.

In Feb­ru­ary 2022, LM­CS divers Kaz­im Ali Jr, Fyzal Kur­ban, Rishi Nages­sar and Yusuf Hen­ry died in a Paria pipeline in which they were work­ing. A fifth div­er, Christo­pher Boodram, sur­vived. The is­sue was ex­am­ined by a Com­mis­sion of En­quiry.

On June 15, Massy En­er­gy em­ploy­ee Al­lan­lane Ramkissoon died fol­low­ing an ex­plo­sion at Ni­Quan’s Pointe-a-Pierre plant.

Yes­ter­day, Mc­Clashie said the OSH agency had be­gun an ag­gres­sive re­cruit­ment dri­ve for OSH in­spec­tors, in par­tic­u­lar, to fill va­can­cies.

A num­ber of them have been re­cruit­ed and the process is still on.

Re­ply­ing to In­dars­ingh’s query which in­volved the Paria and Ni­Quan in­ci­dents, Mc­Clashie said, “We will re­cruit based on need and what we need to sup­port the work of the OSH. Those two in­ci­dents (at Paria, Ni­Quan), though re­gret­table, will guide us in terms of what we need in terms of skill sets and that will be re­flect­ed in our re­cruit­ment process.”

Mc­Clashie said the OSH’s chief in­spec­tor, deputy and oth­ers are all con­tract­ed posts which are not un­der the pub­lic ser­vice. Mc­Clashie al­so said a full 17-mem­ber board of the OSH Au­thor­i­ty was re­cent­ly ap­point­ed fol­low­ing a board change.